Full Circle
by Roozette
Summary: Harry and Tom have always been connected. i Years later when he wakes from nightmares he will feel the ghostly stroke of fingers across his cheek and be soothed back to sleep./i


**Author:** Roozette

**Rating:** PG

**Word Count:** 3,445

**Warnings:** Illusions of grandeur, violence

**Pairing:** Harry/Tom, as in a mentally-linked not slash-linked. Harry/Ginny, oddly enough, but only mentioned in passing.

**Disclaimer:** All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. The song referenced is "Bye Bye Blackbird," performed by Gene Austin circa 1926 and written by Ray Henderson and Mort Dixon.

**Author's Note:** Written during my "porn drought." Don't ask. A creepy little story that popped into my head about the similarities between Tom and Harry. My beta said, _"It's kind of horrifying, isn't it? In a completely complimentary way, that is. *grins* _I think I removed all the HTML tags, sorry if I missed any.

**Summary:** Harry and Tom have always been connected. _Years later when he wakes from nightmares he will feel the ghostly stroke of fingers across his cheek and be soothed back to sleep._

**"Full Circle"**

He's an infant and roly-poly with baby fat.

His mother is soft, warm, fragrant. She likes to kiss his fingers, run her fingers down his face in a soothing caress, rub her cheeks against the soles of his feet, and whisper to him in slightly sibilant-sounding words about his pre-destined greatness. The words themselves are nothing but the vaguest of memories, their meaning lost in the haze of not-quite-knowing and misunderstanding. But the sentiment is there, stronger than anyone would have imagined. Years later when he wakes from nightmares he will feel the ghostly stroke of fingers across his cheek and be soothed back to sleep.

He cries the day he's taken from her. So does she.

His mother weeps silently, as if the pain inside is too overwhelming to be demeaned by sobs and whimpers. It hurts, the strength with which she holds him to her, and he wriggles against her in protest, almost relieved when he's set on to soft material. "Please," begging now. "Please, no! Not yet."

His world falls away as his mother begs.

_"Blackbird, Blackbird, singing the blues away…"_

The music, scratchy, high-pitched violins, hurting his ears and waking him up. Another woman smiling down at him tenderly brushes his shaggy hair off his forehead. "Hello, my precious," the woman coos, swaying back and forth as the music plays in the background. "Aren't you just the most darling thing in the world?"

_"Blackbird, Blackbird, why do you sit and say… there's no sunshine in store?"_

Tired, so sleepy still, and so confused by all these people. He can feel the locket his mother always wears pressed against his side, and can't be bothered to care beyond that. A man, older, hairy, stands by the lady and nods down at him. "A fine boy, there."

He's six, standing in the parlor, lower lip protruding in a defiant pout. An unhappy man with mean eyes sits in the chair before him, lips pursed tight and eyes hard, mouth opening to yell at him.

Uh oh. All three names is never a good sign. "I didn't _mean_ to!"

"I won't have it!" A woman has entered the room, pacing back and forth. "I won't have such madness in the home!"

"But he says it runs in great bloodlines!" Pouting is forgotten over the awesomeness of this new familial connection. "And that _others_ can talk to snakes to! They whisper to them like they whisper to me! He says he can teach me lots of things I won't learn in any boring old school!"

The man makes a wordless exclamation of fury, and he runs from the room, from the house, furious and wanting to hide. It's a different woman, sitting on a couch in front of a fireplace, that beckons him close and pulls him into her lap. "Oh, my darling," she whispers, pressing her smooth cheek to the top of his unruly black hair. "My precious, precious boy. You're too young to understand, but please, my lovely, listen to Grammy."

"Yes, ma'am." She's not his Grammy, but he nods against her chest, seeking comfort in the beating of her heart and wishing furiously for warm fingers to stroke his face. The fingers are long gone, however, and no one ever talks about _her_. At least not to him.

"You are a gift from above, my treasure." Grammy hugs him close. "But that gift, talking to snakes, was made famous by a heretic." His eyes widen appreciatively. He isn't quite sure what a heretic is, but his Sunday school teacher mutters dire things about them. It seemed altogether a quite thrilling thing to be. "I know it seems exciting to sneak away, but it is a very dangerous thing you do when you play that game. Please, for Grammy, stay away from the snakes."

Reluctantly, he agrees, apologizes, and eats all of his vegetables at dinner without complaint as an act of penance. He never again deliberately shies from his studies or his family to visit his mysterious new friends. And if he frequently slips out of the house to visit in the dead of night… well, no one knows his secret except the snakes that welcome him like old friends.

He's eleven and scared to death as he steps through a stone wall to take him away from everything he knows. He's alone; those who dropped him off already hating him for turning out so much like his mother. But the train is shiny, the magic is warm and welcoming as it dances across his skin, and his phoenix-core wand is clenched securely in his hand. He's as ready as he'll ever be to face this new adventure of a school.

"Hello." He boards the train and hopes to greet equally nervous students. Maybe these kids won't hate him before they learn who he is. He nods polite greetings, trying to enter the cabin with all the cool self-possession he's been taught a person of his social caliber needs to possess in order to survive in the real world. One of the boys dares to sneer out his name, inquiring after his lineage.

He's not prepared for this, not really, has never been schooled on the importance of blood status from his half-mad "uncle." Still, his caretakers would be proud by the coolly disdainful sneer on his face as he looks up and stares the silent children down. He immediately feels ashamed, offers to share his sweets, and feels like he may have friends by the time the boats dock at the castle.

It's no surprise where he's sorted, even less of a surprise when he seems to take naturally to the spells and charms his professors teach him. What is a surprise to him is the amount of people who genuinely seem interested in him. Most of his teachers adore him, his peers want to be seen with him, and the house system teaches him the remarkably useful knowledge of what a power structure is, as well as how to maintain and manipulate one. And so it is at the tender age of eleven that he begins to dream of creating a magical empire, carving his own destiny in this new and exciting world.

Dumbledore reminds him of his Grammy. He can already tell that any decisions he makes in regards to his future will need to be done in the dead of night. There's a certain sense of moral superiority there, a sense that decisions made will hold more weight. Much like learning to brave the dark to appease Grammys worry over the snakes, he needs to learn to keep any seemingly untoward questions or reservation silent, as Dumbledore seems the type of person content with the de-purification of the wizarding world. One who would label him a heretic for asking questions or agreeing with his friends if those views did not correlate with Dumbledore's. One who does not necessarily believe that the wizarding world needs to break away from the Muggles or risk dangerous exposure. Dumbledore, while impossible not to adore on some levels, will need to be watched.

He's twenty, and has finally realized that Muggles have a use.

Townsfolk turn blind eyes to wizard eccentricities, to mutterings about the strange lights going off at all manner of the night, his weird fashion trends and those of his friends when they forget to change out of their robes. Muggles even ignore the way the dirt in the graveyard below the house always seems freshly-turned and fertile. From his house atop the hill, he smiles.

He inherited the house from a man who passed away last year, leaving everything he owned to him and ignoring his own son completely in the will. He knows the son would complain, but the man has seen the wrong end of _Crucio _and _Obliviate_ so many times he's developed a twitch whenever he comes too close, preferring to drown his sorrows at the local tavern. Grammy frets over this, cooing at him to overcompensate for others disinterest and making chocolate biscuits for his "sweet little" friends, worrying that her precious boy is working too hard – as evidenced by his reddening eyes. It's a testimony for the fear and respect his followers have for him that they will sit in his parlor, eat her biscuits, and make no disrespectful or untoward comments over his Squib grandmother.

And still his empire grows.

The plans he half-formulated at eleven have sharpened. The ring on his finger is a stunning testimony to this. Then there is the book he keeps hidden in his office, unwilling to specify the amount of time spent imagining if the searing, ripping pain would be the same as it had been with the necklace. Hufflepuff's cup came next, it had seemed only fitting to add that to his collection. Everyone needs a shining monument to his cause. Using an artifact from each of the founders just makes Hogwarts more his, makes the castle synonymous with home.

He finds himself often stroking the Slytherin locket affectionately and thinks of his initial interaction with snakes with fond remembrance. They kept their promise when they said he would be taught things not learned in schools. And his father, in his own way, gave his life to help him achieve his goals… From the window he watches the previous owner's son stagger drunkenly up the hill. He nibbles on a biscuit while glancing at his newest acquisition, a beauty he's decided to name Nagini.

He's fifty-five and staring at a cookie-cutter house complete with white picket fence.

People fear him, worship him, sell their souls to him for nothing more than a second of recognition and a brand on their arm… and yet this boy, this _child_ is prophesized to take it all away from him. He watches through the window as the father creates bursts of multi-colored light and the chubby baby claps his hands and giggles with delight. There is drool on the baby's chin, a plastic sippy-cup and two steaming mugs on the table. He watches the cozily domestic scene and thinks of his Grammy, long deceased, and her cloying brand of love. Is there anything to dictate that this child will _not_ grow up and seek his own empire? Is this child, already similar physically with his messy black hair and bright eyes, also similar magically and, thus, predestined for greatness?

He cannot take the chance.

His steps are measured, unhurried, as he enters the house. The husband proves to be no more than a nuisance, and it is mere seconds later he is staring into the tear-dampened face of the wife. She makes no sound as she sobs, as though her grief, her understanding of this moment, is too overwhelming to be demeaned by sobs and whimpers. It is this, above all else, that makes him hesitate. As if his hesitation was tangible, she takes this moment to begin begging. "No! Please don't do this!"

And yet all he hears is a heart-broken, "Please, not yet!"

But then it is done and he is squashing the half-forgotten voice in his head as surely as he drowned out the woman's desperate pleas. The baby isn't crying anymore, like his mother the child hasn't put sound to his confusion and grief the entire time he has been in the nursery. He steps forward as if in a trance and strokes his fingers over the baby's face. The bright eyes flutter with pleasure over the soft caress, his face breaking out in a wide, dimply smile.

No.

No hesitation, no regrets. He has removed those needless emotions from himself long ago. Or thought he had. Determinedly, he steps back and raises his wand.

As the curse rebounds, the baby starts to cry. The pain is overwhelming, ripping through him with a fierce possessiveness no spell he had ever come across can compete with. He's pulled from his body, watching through a gossamer haze of _something_ as his body falls to the floor and the baby cries and cries, blood bubbling unnaturally on his little forehead. Right before he splits apart, again, and allows part of himself to drift from the room, he wonders if the baby, too, will dream of ghostly fingers touching his face. And if he does, will the fleeting touch bring him remembered comfort or pain?

He's seventy-three, and none of this ever happened. Or, if it did, it didn't happen in quite this way.

Regret is useless. Destiny cannot be denied or circumvented, only postponed for a bit.

Tom's given the matter a fair bit or thought. Would he still have become a Dark Lord if he'd been raised with a doting grandmother figure? Yes. The thirst for greatness flows through his veins as surely as Slytherin's blood. It's fitting, then, that by activating the prophesy he forced Harry Potter to sit up and face his own destiny as well. Fitting, that right now he is circling a seventeen-year-old boy with more fear than he has felt for anything or anyone in too long to remember. With music, of all things, running through his head. Memories and scents too closely intertwined to distinguish one from the other.

Foolish boy. Does he really think that dying will remove his Horcrux... an item born in blood and the very dregs of death and darkness? If anything, his foolish sacrifice has given the memory of the fifty-five-year-old version of himself a stronger hold upon Harry's soul. The boy will learn, though. While Harry may have sacrificed himself to protect others from Lord Voldemort, he did nothing to protect the world from himself. Ultimately, Harry bound them closer, made them his followers. He smirks at the irony of it all.

The spell is coming at him now, the brilliant red of the _Expelliarmus_ meeting the sickly green of _Avada Kedavra_ and merging into one. It makes him smile, the righteous indignation and determination written all over Harry's face. Much better than the resignation Harry showed upon entering the forest. And just like when making any plans or changes in his life, Tom is ready to let go, start anew, whatever.

There is only one thing left to do before he goes. One final act of manipulation to show the boy how alike they truly are.

Raising his left hand, Tom looks directly at Harry through the multi-colored haze. Slowly, he trails his fingers over his face in a parody of a comforting caress. Brilliant green eyes widen in horrified shock, Harry's left hand rising seemingly of its own will to touch his own cheek. Ah, so the remembered touch was a _comfort_ to him all these years. Tom smiles. But now Harry's hand is loosening on his wand - that will never do. So, pleased with himself and finally understanding, he lets go.

There's seven seconds between the moment the spell impacts the body and the moment cognitive thought vanishes. Tom knows this. He studied the effects of all three Unforgivable curses on both Muggles and wizards intently in his late twenties. A lot can happen in seven seconds.

He registers the shock and the fear on the faces surrounding him, notices the Death Eaters already fleeing the room, the people with faces streaked with tears and dirt. And he notices the minute shaking of Harry's head, the helpless denial in green eyes that don't seem to blink as they watch Tom fall, fingers still pressed against his cheek.

The baby remembers the gesture.

Tom's soul remembers it, too.

He smiles in satisfaction, wanting to laugh as death creeps heavy on his body like a smothering blanket. Even now he's mastered death. How fitting to go to one of his graves knowing he achieved his main goal of always being the one to shape and control his destiny.

He's uncertain of his age, staring through mostly familiar eyes as the malformed body lies crumpled on the floor. The body is frozen with a smile on its warped face, as if clued in to a secret no one could even guess at. His shock is so great he can't even react when the bushy-haired Mudblood flings herself at him and begins to laugh and cry all at once. Now is not the time, though, so he burrows down, hides himself below, and waits for a sign.

He's twenty-five or eighty, depending on who's talking, and staring down at the black-haired green-eyed baby nestled in his arms. Deep inside, something world-weary and battle-hardened stirs as he carefully enfolds the Slytherin locket in the downy blankets swaddling his precious son. This is the sign he's been waiting for.

Movement on the bed beside him. Ginny stirs, opening exhausted brown eyes to smile at him. Them. He smiles back, pleased when she makes no comment as he continues to tuck the blanket back around the baby, the locket disappearing from sight. An old radio on the counter, channel tuned to an oldies station, the only noise in the otherwise silent room.

_"Blackbird, Blackbird, singing the blues away…"_ The music, scratchy, high-pitched violins, hurts the baby's ears and wakes him up.

Ginny reaches for the baby, tenderly brushing shaggy hair off his forehead once Harry hands him over. "Hello, my precious," she coos, swaying lightly side-to-side as the music plays in the background. "Aren't you just the most darling thing in the world?" She weeps silently, as if the joy and the pain of creating life is too overwhelming to be demeaned by sobs and whimpers.

He knew he would marry Ginny the moment he laid eyes on her. Grief-stricken, battle-weary, determined… her eyes blazed with a fierce determination, a hunger to prove herself. She smelled like him and she reminded him of Bellatrix before she lost herself to the Dark. He kissed her after the battle, told her he planned to marry her someday, and walked away. Five years later they had both graduated and moved on with their lives. He had completed Auror training and she had gone on to play professional Quidditch. They ran in to each other by complete accident at a party. Tom recognized traces of himself in her aura and purred. Ginny turned, saw him, and smiled. James was born nine months later; they married as an afterthought. While Harry loved his son fiercely, recognized himself, Ginny, and traces of Tom in his sweet little face, he knew it wasn't the sign he was waiting for.

_"Blackbird, Blackbird, why do you sit and say… there's no sunshine in store?"_

Ginny makes a face at the radio, content as the baby stops whimpering and sucks at her breast. Harry watches them both intently. "I was kind of out of it with the drugs they gave me." Ginny is speaking softly, pausing to kiss the baby's fingers and smile indulgently. "What did you name him?" She's not asking to be submissive, but because he gets to name the boys and her the girls. "Luna was convinced we'd name him Tom." Ginny dreams of a houseful of children, he dreams of lasting immortality by passing his blood on through his kids.

"Albus." He answers at last as Ginny transfers the baby to her shoulder and rubs the tiny back in firm, gentle circles. She arches her eyebrows in surprise at this, but makes no comment as she nuzzles the baby's soft hair with her cheek. "Albus Severus." It seemed fitting, once he saw the physical similarities between himself and the baby, to name him after the two men who had always suspected him, both of him, all of him, of some treachery or the other.

"Reminds me of the war." Ginny tucks the baby back against her chest, skin to skin, and cuddles him as he drifts in-between sleep and wakefulness. "Perhaps it's time…"

"Time for what?"

But Ginny shakes her head, smiling a strange, secret smile. "His name suits him." She shifts lower on the bed, letting Harry take Albus as she drifts back off to sleep. "Do you think he'll be a Parselmouth, too?"

Albus opens his eyes as his father holds him, out-of-focus hazy green eyes that sharpen as Harry whispers to him in slightly sibilant-sounding tones about his imminent greatness, his legacy. And when Harry takes his right hand and runs his fingers over the soft, downy skin…

The baby isn't crying anymore, like his mother the child is content to cuddle and absorb the magic passing from father to son. When Harry strokes his fingers over the baby's face, the bright eyes flutter with pleasure over the soft caress, his face breaking out in a wide, dimply smile.


End file.
